What is the way to become a cultural power?

First, the formulation and implementation of the strategy of "cultural power" is not only the needs of China itself, but also the needs of the world in the future.

Now, the situation of our culture (I am talking about the deep cultural situation here) is really worrying. After entering modern times, we have studied western culture for a long time. Because we have not studied our own cultural traditions for thousands of years, and because we have been imprisoned for too long, we mistakenly believe that our culture is useless and should be completely abandoned in the face of powerful western industry and force, so we wolfed down the food of western culture. However, western cultural food is rich in nutrition and excessive in hormones, which has soaked every organ of our cultural body for a long time, resulting in the "sub-health" of the cultural body. Its main manifestations are as follows: on the social level, it is manifested in superstition of science and technology, worship of material enjoyment and appreciation of cultural lag; The ideological field is full of binary opposition, instrumental rationality and mechanism. At present, all kinds of social, environmental and psychological problems we encounter, as well as the "three floats" phenomenon (impetuous, grandiose and superficial) that pervades all fields, are closely related to the role of this hormone in the cultural body. This "sub-health" cultural body needs to strengthen the body and get rid of evil spirits. To this end, great efforts must be made and it will take a long time.

So, what is the situation in today's world? Now, we can say that western culture, which has made great contributions to mankind, has basically come to an end. Its contribution to emancipating the human mind, promoting the development of science and technology and social progress, and its regenerative function have all been exhausted, and it can no longer make new contributions to mankind. The way out for mankind in the future lies in restoring its own tradition washed away by western culture and replacing monism with multicultural blending. This has become the understanding of many scholars in western ideological circles. There are still many western scholars who are trying to criticize their cultural traditions in the past 300 years, and their conclusions are gradually approaching the concept of China culture. However, because they don't understand China culture, they are still singing on the other side of the mountain. Although echoing China, it is not true and there is no hand in hand. Therefore, it can be said that it is not only our own needs, but also the future needs of the world for China to formulate and implement the strategy of "strengthening the country through culture".

China's traditional culture is indeed rich in promoting world harmony, harmony between man and nature, and harmony between people. Its system is complete, exquisite and full of humanity, which is rare in the world. However, because we belittled ourselves too much and destroyed ourselves too much before, these excellent contents in traditional culture are not known to Chinese people and the world. Today, when we think about cultural strategy, we must have a historical vision, a world vision, a confident mind and the courage to innovate.

Second, thinking about cultural strategy must follow the law of cultural occurrence, development, growth, decline from prosperity and prosperity from decline.

What kind of long-term cultural strategy should and can we adopt? It seems that this is not something I can answer at the moment. As far as academic circles are concerned, there are different opinions. I just want to say that thinking about cultural strategy must follow the law of cultural occurrence, development, growth, decline from prosperity and prosperity from decline; We must aim at the current cultural situation and trend, as well as the possibility of the future, and prescribe the right medicine. In my opinion, to understand the present situation and trend of culture, we can start with the following questions about the law of cultural development.

1, the persistence and tenacity of culture

The emergence of culture coincides with the emergence of human beings. Because of culture, human beings become human beings. Culture is the fundamental symbol that distinguishes human beings from other animals. Mencius said, "Man and beast are also looking forward to it. Eating warm clothes does not teach, close to animals. " By "teaching", he means education, culture and humanization-acquiring the qualities that make people become people.

The Chinese nation has a long history, and its culture is even longer than the historical records of the Chinese nation. Judging from the history of cultural development, writing happened relatively late. Even if there is an "oral history" in the earliest literature, the actual cultural history is much earlier than these records, because the earlier legends are no longer known. Therefore, the pursuit of the ultimate source of culture by future generations is more speculation than evidence, and will never become a "history of faith."

The resilience of culture determines the long-term nature of culture, which comes from culture, that is, the way, content, habits and customs of human life. Once it is formed, it becomes the basis and conditions for people (tribes, tribes and nations) to produce, live and get along with each other, so it will inevitably be passed down from generation to generation, and no external force can do anything. Although there is bound to be richness, variation, development and decline in the process of inheritance, as long as culture meets the needs of people's production, life and getting along, especially people's beliefs and philosophies, which are saturated by other cultural forms, it will not be subverted. Among the four ancient civilizations of mankind (two rivers valley civilization, Egyptian civilization, Indian civilization and Chinese civilization), only Chinese civilization has experienced vicissitudes and never stopped, which is why. The culture of any era can only develop on the basis of the previous culture, and it is absolutely impossible to suddenly plant or transplant a brand-new culture, which is also the same reason. The cultivation of culture is a long-term process, which is why we can't rush for success.

2. The education system is the pillar to maintain cultural inheritance and innovation.

There are various ways, methods and channels for the inheritance of national culture from generation to generation, but there is only one backbone: education.

From the perspective of world history, in the period of ignorance, education was limited to tribes, life training in tribes or teaching by elders; After the emergence of the family, it is mainly the words and deeds of parents, grandparents and relatives; Once a country is formed, there will generally be an institutional system similar to a school to provide formal and systematic education for young people. Before the industrial revolution, almost all schools in the world were mainly based on morality, belief, writing and computing knowledge (what Han Yu said was a summary of the content and nature of education at this stage), while the production skills were mainly taught by elders on the spot, hand in hand and orally; After the industrial revolution, imparting knowledge and skills became the main function of schools, especially after the separation of church and state, western schools no longer mainly assumed the responsibility of cultivating ethics and beliefs, and "pure knowledge" and "pure skills" became their main characteristics.

Starting from 1906, China officially began to abolish the old schools and set up "foreign schools". China people have always attached importance to the role of schools in cultural inheritance and moral cultivation, so they also pay attention to the cultivation of "morality, intelligence and physique" in foreign schools, so schools have become the main places for cultural inheritance. In western society, although schools do not undertake moral education for students, religions and associations play an extremely huge educational function.

School education has the advantages of being systematic, comprehensive and forming a unique environment. Therefore, although the family is also an important place for cultural inheritance, parents are the first teachers of children, but they still have to "teach their children by changing them" and send their children to private schools (such as rural schools, home schools or schools) and public schools to study.

The so-called "system", that is, according to the age of students to give corresponding education, first pay attention to perceptual education, and gradually pay attention to rational education, from shallow to deep, self-contained system. The core of this kind of education is to make the educated become a normal citizen, that is, a person who is needed and welcomed by society, that is, a complete person. The so-called "integration" means that courses such as arts and sciences, music and physical beauty cooperate with extracurricular activities to form a comprehensive and holistic education. The so-called unique environment is to let the educated enter a small society and form a special group, which is the preparation for a "natural person" and a "family person" to become a "social person"; Living a group life is bound by the rules of group life, which is an essential training for entering the society in the future; Schools will have corresponding teaching AIDS and facilities for teaching or other activities, which is difficult for families to have; In addition, the unique atmosphere of learning, thinking, debate, cooperation and joy in the school is also quietly exerting a great influence on the growth of the educated.

The basic function of education is the basis of preserving, inheriting and creating culture. Needless to say, this function of education in China has been distorted and even destroyed to some extent. The outstanding performance in the field of teaching is that students and teachers are not cultivated and improved as "people", but as machines-machines that will produce material products or engage in a certain business in the future. Machines can only be produced, and only "people"-people with excellent culture can create them. If a student grows into a "complete person" in 16 (from elementary school to undergraduate) or 24 years (from kindergarten to doctor), a person who can create and meet the needs of his times, then the essential function of the school will be realized.

3. Great infiltration of community culture and family culture.

In modern society, we can't ignore the influence of family and community on people in cultural inheritance and construction. Broadly speaking, the community includes industries, such as schools, military camps, enterprises and so on. The community mentioned here is narrow, referring to rural towns, urban streets or residential areas. Old-fashioned streets and lanes, neighbors have lived together for many years or even become generations of family friends, familiar with each other; Harmonious relations, common interests and mutual help have formed a unique "cultural community", which has an intangible and tremendous impact on people's growth. The modernization and urbanization of urban and rural areas in China have greatly improved the quality of people's living conditions, but also dispersed the inherent community; The new community became a colony without culture. Under such circumstances, people can only get cultural nutrition from their families "eight hours away". Imagine, now that the family is moving from the building in this community to another community, will it be as reluctant to part with the neighbors as moving out of a small Hu? The relationship between community culture and people, that is, the relationship between community culture and family daily life is the closest; The formation of a community culture, under the premise of conscious construction, also takes several years, more than ten years, or even decades; It is a great loss to slow down or ignore the role of community in cultural construction and communication and its function of cultivating people's morality and good habits.

4. Examine the cultural situation.

In my opinion, we can examine the situation of a culture from three aspects: first, the protection and utilization of cultural relics; The second is the situation of academic research; Third, the degree of people's recognition in understanding and practice.

Cultural relics, including above-ground and underground cultural relics, of course, handed down documents are also among them. These are the materialized forms of traditional culture. Despite the disaster of the "Cultural Revolution", the original cultural relics on the ground have basically recovered to the scale of the past; There are more and more newly excavated cultural relics, which are well protected and have accumulated some experience in rational utilization of cultural relics.

Academic research has been suspended for many years. By the 1970s, we were not only behind Japanese, Korean and other neighboring countries, but also behind Taiwan Province Province. In the past two decades, great progress has been made in this field, and the research scope, research team size, financial support and achievement level have been greatly improved. Although there is still a gap with foreign countries in some areas, it is approaching the international level as a whole. I imagine that if we are given another ten or twenty years, we will definitely reach the international level.

People's recognition is actually the embodiment of the degree of internalization of excellent traditional culture, which can also be said to be the reflection of the life of excellent traditional culture and the most important embodiment of whether one's own culture is strong or not. But this is the most worrying point at present. I don't think I need to demonstrate this. People can cite countless examples in their lives. There are many reasons for this situation, and several books can be written to discuss and demonstrate it. I just said from the perspective of a scholar's responsibility that excellent traditional culture is not a display, not just for scholars to learn, but to cultivate the best nutrition in soul of china. If a cultural product only exists in the museum and a literary form only exists on the stage, then we can say that they are dead. Similarly, if traditional culture only exists in scholars' study or seminars, then we can also say that it is dead. The "pure scholarship" of China's traditional culture is a terrible thing. The way to avoid it, as far as scholars are concerned, is to let more and more people go into primary and secondary schools, urban communities and villages to do some "literacy" work of traditional culture and awaken the cultural genes that still exist in people's hearts; At the same time, more and more scholars write popular books for workers, farmers and students, cooperate with cultural and creative workers, and show seemingly abstruse truths in forms that people like and in words that people can understand. Then again, the popularization and promotion of works is not easy-only in-depth can it be simple; Only a simple way can we go further.

5. The auxiliary role of religion

The "Decision" of the Sixth Plenary Session put forward that "the Party's basic principles of religious work should be fully implemented, and religious figures and believers should play an active role in promoting cultural prosperity and development." So, how do you view the role of religion in today's cultural construction?

Judging from the history of religious development, religion is almost the same age as human beings. Religion originated from human's fear and awe of unknown fields (the mystery of man himself and the universe, the unpredictability of things). When people know that they are human beings and nothing else, that is, they are aware of their own existence, life and death become his most concerned issues. Therefore, human beings have created their own religion and given various answers to the above questions, with the aim of giving themselves comfort, sustenance and expectation.

For example, Judaism and Christianity, Catholicism and Islam, derived directly and indirectly, all believe in a super effective and absolute God, who created everything except himself. God requires people to believe in it, do good according to its enlightenment, repent their sins, enter the kingdom of heaven after death and return to God, otherwise they will fall into hell and suffer all kinds of hardships. In this way, religion is extremely sacred and attractive to its followers.

Another example is Buddhism, which does not focus on explaining the origin of the universe. Therefore, Buddhist scriptures often say "no beginning and no end" and repeatedly say "from the beginning". Sakyamuni is not a god, but the prince of the ancient Indian king suddhodana. His name is Siddhartha. He was born in the Lanpini Garden in Capillo, and his mother's name was Moya. He died seven days after giving birth, and the prince was raised by his menstrual boboti. Sakyamuni was born in the world, grew up in the world, sought for the world law, realized the world, and got nirvana, and his remains (relics) remained in the world. The so-called "Buddha" means awakening. Aware of what? That is to understand the laws of life and the universe and master the attitude and methods to treat life and death, oneself and him correctly. In Buddhism's view, everything has a cause and effect, that is, the "origin theory", which is fruitless without cause and fruitless without cause. Therefore, people should see through the causes of life suffering and master the methods to eliminate it. It can be seen that Buddhism attaches great importance to the world, which is completely different from Judaism.

In the final analysis, both the "Apocalypse" religion and the "Awakening" religion are concerned about people, but they all revolve around the "ultimate concern", that is, thinking about the biggest thing in life-life and death, getting rid of suffering, and the inseparable ultimate concern for the universe, and giving the answers of this religion. Almost all religions' teachings come from this. In order to reach the kingdom of heaven or get rid of the pain of birth, illness and death, we must understand the principle of heaven and man, do good and have peace.

Historically, during the long-term missionary work, development and reform, various religions have formed their own different theoretical systems, accumulated a large number of classics and the interpretations of classics by wise men of past dynasties, which greatly influenced the development of literature, art, philosophy and science all over the world and made them deeply rooted in people's hearts. Therefore, it can be said that religion is a kind of culture, a culture that directly affects people's hearts and an important part of national culture. It can even be said that in terms of origin, there is no culture without religion. China is no exception. Therefore, when carrying forward and developing Chinese culture, we can't ignore religion.

The only religion inherent in China is Taoism; Buddhism has always been China from Han Dynasty to Tang Dynasty, and it should be regarded as the primitive religion in China. Christianity, Catholicism and Islam have entered China for hundreds or thousands of years, and they have also adapted to the national conditions of China. Therefore, the concepts of tolerance, harmony, respect for ancestors, altruism, benevolence, courtesy and wisdom in China culture have been absorbed by foreign religions to varying degrees. Religious philosophical speculation, reverence for nature and relative indifference to death (including thin burial) are also being integrated into China culture.

However, religion has always had two sides, that is, one that promotes social harmony and the other that is not conducive to harmony. In the ancient history of China, every prosperous dynasty not only gave full play to the positive side of religion, but also restricted and restricted its negative side. The problem now is that all kinds of misunderstandings and doubts about religion (some of which are caused by the insufficient construction of religion itself) have affected the in-depth study of religious characteristics, and there is room for strengthening both in restraining it and making it work. If we can take history as a mirror, sum up and draw lessons from successes and failures in history, and make necessary adjustments to management methods with religion as a supplement, it will certainly be conducive to the construction of new culture. In a word, when considering the cultural strategy, we should not forget the religious field.

6. Advantages and limitations of literature and art

When people talk about culture, the first thing they think of is literature and art, because literature and art can vividly express the spirit of the times, people's wishes and memories of the past. "Laughing and cursing are all articles." Therefore, people generally love and need literature and art, so literature and art can play a huge role in improving the quality of national culture. This is its superiority.

However, literature and art also have their limitations. First, the creative cycle is relatively long, often retrospective narrative. Second, the way to reflect the spirit of the times is tortuous. It rejects straightforward preaching, so it requires higher knowledge and cultural level of creators and appreciators. Although entertaining art can often be welcomed by the general public, if the creator does not have a deep understanding of life and times and a high moral cultivation, it is easy to go to the road of kitsch, which will not only fail to improve the audience, but will be counterproductive. Third, the cost is generally higher than other cultural communication methods, and sometimes it is inevitable to be limited by some objective conditions.

Literature and art originally belonged to the people. People's life and creation are the source of literature and art and should be appreciated by the masses. But in today's market economy environment, it is easy to become a "minority literature and art". How to avoid the limitations of literature and art as much as possible in the development of popular culture and gradually create and enrich new culture is an extremely important topic.

At present, the ongoing cultural system reform in China and the development of cultural and creative industries emphasized by governments at all levels are strategic measures taken in this field, that is, all people can enjoy culture and open the way for the future.

Thirdly, once China culture can "go out" in big strides, it means that the body of China culture has become strong.

The most important thing for the promotion and development of any culture is to handle two things well: first, firmly establish the subjectivity of culture, which should exist in people's hearts and daily life; There is also a conscious contact with different cultures. Through contact, we can get to know each other, understand, appreciate and learn from each other.

The openness and subjectivity of culture are dialectical unity. Without subjectivity, no matter the country or the individual, there is no foundation and no opinion. In contact with different cultures, there may be or may be undue collision or conflict, or they may go to the other end, blindly swallowing dates regardless of good or bad, and finally lose themselves and don't know who' I' is. On the other hand, if the culture is not open and unconsciously contacts with different cultures, it will stand still, and over time, the culture will wither; If the culture is not strong, the country will decline, and the history of nearly 300 years is the best explanation.

Cultural "going out" is the concentrated expression of cultural consciousness. The Westernization Movement, the Reform Movement of 1898, the Revolution of 1911, and the May 4th Movement, which started in the second half of the19th century, were all born in contact with western culture, but they were all introduced by foreigners or China people, including Marxism, and were also given to us by the Russian October Revolution. Are we passive or active? Now, the Sixth Plenary Session has decided to put forward: "Implement the strategy of cultural going abroad and continuously enhance the international influence of Chinese culture." This may be the first time in the history of the development of the Chinese nation to mention "cultural going out" to all the people of China, which is a golden opportunity. The fundamental reason is that after more than 30 years of reform and opening up, China's economic strength has increased and our culture has begun to realize itself.

At present, China culture still faces many difficulties in "going out". First, western culture, especially American culture, has now dominated the world, while China culture is unique, an "exception" and is often dismissed as "heterogeneous". Second, the prejudice against China culture in the West is deeply rooted. It is often said that we are engaged in "exporting values" (this was originally a false proposition, so I won't go into details here), and difficulties and resistance emerge one after another. This situation will be difficult to change for a while. Third, he is not good at objectively introducing China culture and China today in the form and words that foreigners like. In recent years, the situation of China's cultural "going out" has improved, and a prominent performance is that Confucius Institutes are spread all over five continents 105 countries. Western critics say that this is the only cultural product in China that can be accepted by the mainstream western society. This experience is worth summing up seriously, so that it can play a greater role in the all-round communication between Chinese culture and countries.

China's cultural "going out" has existed since ancient times, but it is not conscious, but naturally flows out with commodities, immigration or war. When China is poor and weak, or has no position in the world economy, even if it is consciously introduced to the outside world, it will not attract people's attention. Now consciously go out, but not a big step, just a small step. We still have a long way to go to "make great strides": first, we must wait until China really becomes strong and China culture becomes strong; The second is to learn to "stride".

Cultural exchange has three levels and channels. The first is the communication between governments, which is mainly based on time, place and people (things) and revolves around the interests between countries. This kind of communication determines the political relations between countries. The second is the communication between scholars, which is academic and has few participants, but it goes straight to the cultural roots and contacts with each other's values, world outlook and ethics, which has far-reaching influence. The result of this contact can reflect all fields of culture and truly understand each other's "heart" and "root". The third is communication among the masses, which is often called "public diplomacy" now. Business, tourism, study abroad, performances, sports competitions, etc. All fall into this category.

In my opinion, of these three levels or channels, the second is the most important. Because academic exchanges can transcend politics and ideology; In the world, it can influence their own decision makers, in the world, it can influence the public, and it has an impact on culture. Now, our situation is precisely this weakness. Because our research on our own culture is not deep enough, and at the same time, more than 90% scholars who study culture can't communicate in other languages, even if they communicate, they lack discourse skills and coping methods to communicate with different cultures. This is the result of long-term closure. The most difficult thing is the third level or channel. In terms of mass communication (public diplomacy), many people are involved now, but they are more proficient in a certain cultural form and less aware of the laws of culture and communication. This is because ordinary tourists and cultural workers are restricted by the education system.

In short, in my opinion, it is an inevitable trend for China culture to "go global". To implement the strategy of "strengthening the country by culture", an important task at present is to put this matter on the important agenda and intensify its efforts. But we didn't make the corresponding preparations before, so in recent years, I put forward the ideas of "keeping fit and going to the world" and "taking small steps and walking quickly". It means that the speed of China's cultural "going out" may depend on the country's economic strength and the amount of cultural "going out" investment; The size of the effect and the depth of the influence basically depend on our own cultural construction and research level. There is a little ahead, so we can be quick, and there is a little behind, so we can only make small steps, not that we don't want to make big strides, but that we can't get up. Once Chinese culture can "go out" in big strides, it means that the body of Chinese culture has become strong; And "going out" will also affect and promote "consolidating the foundation and cultivating the yuan"

(The author is the vice chairman of the 10th the NPC Standing Committee)